No More Learning

HERCULES' PRAYER CONCERNING AJAX, SON OF TELAMON

ISTHMIA VI, 62-73

"If ever, O Father Zeus, thou hast heard
My supplication with willing mind,
Now I beseech thee, with prophetic
Prayer, grant a bold son from Eriboea
To this man, my fated guest;
Rugged in body
As the hide of this wild beast
Which now surrounds me, which, first of all
My contests, I slew once in Nemea; and let his mind agree. "
To him thus having spoken, Heaven sent
A great eagle, king of birds,
And sweet joy thrilled him inwardly.


THE FREEDOM OF GREECE

First at Artemisium
The children of the Athenians laid the shining
Foundation of freedom,
And at Salamis and Mycale,
And in Plataea, making it firm
As adamant.


FROM STRABO[7]

APOLLO

Having risen he went
Over land and sea,
And stood over the vast summits of mountains,
And threaded the recesses, penetrating to the foundations of
the groves.


FROM PLUTARCH

Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail.
[Thus rhymed by the old translator of Plutarch:

"Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough. "]


FROM SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed
Horses delight one;
Others live in golden chambers;
And some even are pleased traversing securely
The swelling of the sea in a swift ship.


FROM STOBAEUS

This I will say to thee:
The lot of fair and pleasant things
It behooves to show in public to all the people;
But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall
Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness.

* * * * *

Pindar said of the physiologists, that they "plucked the unripe fruit
of wisdom. "

* * * * *

Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake. "


FROM CLEMENS OF ALEXANDRIA

To Heaven it is possible from black
Night to make arise unspotted light,
And with cloud-blackening darkness to obscure
The pure splendor of day.

First, indeed, the Fates brought the wise-counseling
Uranian Themis, with golden horses,
By the fountains of Ocean to the awful ascent
Of Olympus, along the shining way,
To be the first spouse of Zeus the Deliverer.
And she bore the golden-filleted, fair-wristed
Hours, preservers of good things.

Equally tremble before God
And a man dear to God.


FROM AELIUS ARISTIDES

Pindar used such exaggerations [in praise of poetry] as to say that
even the gods themselves, when at his marriage Zeus asked if they
wanted anything, "asked him to make certain gods for them who should
celebrate these great works and all his creation with speech and
song.
"

FOOTNOTE:

[7] [This and the following are fragments of Pindar found in ancient
authors. ]




POEMS


NATURE

O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy quire,--
To be a meteor in the sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do,--
Only--be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care:
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city's year forlorn.


INSPIRATION[8]

Whate'er we leave to God, God does,
And blesses us;
The work we choose should be our own,
God leaves alone.

* * * * *

If with light head erect I sing,
Though all the Muses lend their force,
From my poor love of anything,
The verse is weak and shallow as its source.

But if with bended neck I grope,
Listening behind me for my wit,
With faith superior to hope,
More anxious to keep back than forward it,

Making my soul accomplice there
Unto the flame my heart hath lit,
Then will the verse forever wear,--
Time cannot bend the line which God hath writ.

Always the general show of things
Floats in review before my mind,
And such true love and reverence brings,
That sometimes I forget that I am blind.

But now there comes unsought, unseen,
Some clear divine electuary,
And I, who had but sensual been,
Grow sensible, and as God is, am wary.

I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.

I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.

A clear and ancient harmony
Pierces my soul through all its din,
As through its utmost melody,--
Farther behind than they, farther within.

More swift its bolt than lightning is.
Its voice than thunder is more loud,
It doth expand my privacies
To all, and leave me single in the crowd.

It speaks with such authority,
With so serene and lofty tone,
That idle Time runs gadding by,
And leaves me with Eternity alone.